Glastonbury Festival 2013

Over the past week I have survived the blazing sun, pouring rain, hours of standing, swarming crowds, sleeping on hard ground, no showers, nauseating toilets, warm beer and the looming risk of food-poisoning from non-refrigerated food. All these things happen on an average day at Glastonbury Festival, but most are hardly a bother as you are too busy having a great time. Glastonbury is the largest music festival in the world, attracting around 180,000 people in year 2011. Annually the Festival converts a peaceful farm in Somerset UK into a sleepless tent city, covering 900 acres and stretching a mile and a half across. Armed with a tent, wellies (rubber boots) and heaps of snack-food, I faced Glastonbury 2013 with two dear friends from home, Deanna and Jake.

The festival took place from June 26th to 30th, but the majority of musical acts did not start until Friday the 28th. Like most other attendees, we arrived on Wednesday to ensure we found an ideal campsite location. Although we arrived at 10:30am we could not believe how full the fields were already, but we were lucky enough to wedge our small four-man between a couple tents which seemed like mansions in comparison. We set up with a view of the main stage so that we could still listen to acts even if we were not in the crowd. After trudging our heavy bags to the campsite (okay so maybe buying a case of beer was not the greatest idea) we took a much deserved nap before heading out to explore.

Just to ensure that everyone understands how enormous this Festival is, I have pictures for you to see for  yourself. Using a program on my computer I managed to stitch three pictures together into a panorama. I'm quite happy with how it turned out! The view is from a hill in the "Park" area, which is located the opposite side to where we pitched camp. All the visible grey fields are filled with tents, whereas the fancy tipis were reservable by those who can afford them.

 

The iconic quilted Glastonbury sign located at the top of Park hill.

 Home Sweet Home for the Festival. Extremely glad I splurged on getting a four-man in order to fit our bags!

 The local neighbourhood... camping is first come first serve, so there were tents crammed in every nook and cranny.

 Glastonbury Festival is quite remarkable in its green initiatives and colourful atmosphere. This flagged walkway weaved through the center of the site.

 

 

Thursday ended up quite a lot like Wednesday as we patiently waited for Friday to roll around, though perhaps with a bit more time in the tent as the weather turned for the worse. I was very thankful that Thursday was the only day in five to pour rain, and we definitely needed our raingear as it quickly turned into a mud-bath. The weather did not stop us from exploring some of the further reaches of Glastonbury, including the seemingly adult-rated Shangri-La.

 

 Get out your Wellies!

The cute post-rain mud-man that we found near the "Other" stage. Perhaps a tough night drinking cider?

 Welcome to the "Shangra-Hell" stage.

 A couple pictures of the bars in the Shangri-La area. Walking around at night really added to the atmosphere.



 

Besides the music, Glastonbury has a lot of notable features and endless things to see while walking around. One such feature which cannot be missed is the "Arcadia." Located near one of the stages, it is a giant spider-like metal robot that shoots flaming hot jets of fire into the night air. Must be a warm act for the DJs who are inside its center.

 

Unfortunately when the machine shot fire, the picture below was the best my camera could take. Shows you how powerful the flame was; definitely warmed the face!

 

But enough of all the cool things we saw around the site, it was a Festival of course so we were there for the music. On average we saw about 5-7 hours of concert a day over the weekend and still we had to pass up seeing some of our desired bands due to scheduling conflicts. It was enough to give us quite sore backs and feet. Here is a list of the performances we did manage to see (in order of when we saw them):

• International Jazz Disaster
• The Hives
• Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra
• The Lumineers
• Tame Impala
• Alt-J
• Chic ft. Nile Rodgers
• Ben Caplan
• MS MR
• Azealia Banks
• Alabama Shakes
• The Rolling Stones
• First Aid Kit
• Rufus Wainwright
• The Vaccines
• Of Monsters & Men
• Vampire Weekend
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Mumford & Sons
• Xavier Rudd

Perhaps you do not know a lot of these acts and honestly when I first read the line-up I did not either, however this Festival was a great opportunity to learn about amazing new contemporary artists. Besides the obvious highlights of headliners Rolling Stones and Mumford & Sons, some of the real standouts for me were the Lumineers, MS MR, Alabama Shakes, Of Monsters & Men and Vampire Weekend. We even managed to throw in 40 minutes of circus acts where we watched hula-hooping, acrobatic violin playing (a tense act for me...) and bicycle trick-riding.

 

AAAHHHHHH!!!!

 

Rather than share countless pictures of random stages, I will share some from the main acts. First off, our trio had an amazing experience at The Lumineers at the "Other" Stage. Two members of the band decided to try something new by coming out into the audience. As they jostled their way through the crowd, I said in shock to Deanna, "Ahh, I think they are coming towards us." They stopped about five feet away!

 

 

The headliner on Saturday night was the iconic Rolling Stones and I believe probably every ticket-holder attended the concert. We did not try to hard to get near the stage, which meant our view was obscured by many flags waved by eager fans. But in the end, we had the better view of the fireworks and gigantic mechanical bird atop the "Pyramid" stage, plus we could still see Mick Jagger strutting around on the big screen and hear Keith Richard's hoarse smoker's laugh.

 

 Pyramid stage by daylight during the opening act and the massive crowd assembling.

 Best view in the house probably went to the stupid rubber man and all the other flags...

 The bird's wings lifted in all its glory, and then the stage began shooting fire balls.

 And the show could not come to an end without fireworks during the encore of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Satisfaction."

 

The task of wrapping up the entire festival was given to the ever-popular Mumford & Sons, now on their fifth appearance at Glastonbury. Unlike at the Stones, my friend Jake insisted on being near the front for this concert. Our hours of standing in wait were well worth it as we had no flags blocking our view of the stage! The band puts on a great concert, but I think the best part was their encore when they brought out other bands from the day (First Aid Kit, Vampire Weekend, The Vaccines, and The Staves) to sing a rendition of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from my Friends."

 



 



It is still kind of hard to imagine that I attended Glastonbury Festival. The experience was completely thrilling and has left me exhausted and with a cold, but also with lifelong memories. And I was lucky enough to attend with two of my best friends. It may not be the last time we attempt such a thing together. It is getting hard to express in words how thankful I am for all the amazing sights I have seen this past year, and I'm not done yet!

Full of sleepy smiles,
Shannon

A 'Game of Thrones' Weekend

Near the beginning of June, Laura and I met in Northern Ireland to visit extended relatives who live outside of Belfast. Laura was new to this area of Ireland but I had been there twice before, once after Christmas and then with my parents in March. It is always worth the visit because of all the yummy home-cooked meals! My stomach may always believe I am a poor student. We were blessed with great weather so we celebrated with our first barbeque of the season.

 Beautiful BBQ weather!

 The amazing view from my relatives' backyard.

 Laura with Ben the Bassett Hound. Beware of his slobbery mouth!

 

On one afternoon we went together as a group to the nearby estate of Castleward. This property is owned by the National Trust and has a great assortment of walking trails, little shops and artist studios. During our visit I learned two very interesting facts about Castleward. The first is that the mansion was built in the 18th century in two architectural styles. Apparently, the couple who built it could not agree on which style so they made one side Classical and the other Gothic. With a happy marriage comes compromise!



 

The Classical side (above) faces the road, while the Gothic side (below) looks out at the sea. 

 

 The second interesting thing about Castleward is that it is currently used as one of the filming sites for the wildly popular television series Game of Thrones. For those who do not watch this show, it is a compelling plot based in medieval-like times, where warring families are vying for possession of the kingdom's throne. My kind sister managed to get me addicted to Game of Thrones back in April and I have been slowly catching up in episodes. Needless to say we were both fairly excited to know we were standing on the spot where it was filmed, though honestly I didn't recognize any of the landscape. The show is known for its battle violence and gory bits, so I think non-televised Castleward is too peaceful to identify episode backdrops.

Just look at the lovely grounds and massive trees.

 By a strange coincidence, we also discovered that there was a Game of Thrones exhibit for one week at the Titanic Center. How could we resist? It was a small but enjoyable display of costumes and props used through mostly the first and second seasons. It was neat to see how realistic the items were up close. I had not realized that some of the characters (Daenerys, Joffrey) are really short in real life. Here are some pictures to illustrate the items in the exhibit.

Costumes of the families Stark (above) and Lannister (below).

 



The sword of Night's Watchman Jon Snow.

The replica head of Eddard Stark for display on a spike.

One of the dragon models (one of the few things from season three).

We had the chance to try our hand at shooting flaming arrows of wildfire, but the best part was sitting in the Iron Throne. This throne was forged from 1000 surrendered swords, though when you sit in it they feel much more like painted plaster.

 

After our Game of Throne excursion and Laura spent a looong time in the Titanic exhibit, we got to take a walk through Belfast city centre to the area around Queen's University. Here are some of the sights along the way.

 A better image of the distinctive Titanic Center than the one I supplied back in January, plus now they have the added Nomadic. This ship ferried first class passengers from French banks to the Titanic.

A glazed ceramic fish near the waterfront which is decorated with various tiles related to Belfast.

City Hall with a statue of Queen Victoria out front.

We passed the historical Crown Bar, but alas no time to have a pint.

 





That is our trip to Belfast in a nutshell. It is actually today that I part ways with my sister Laura until the end of summer. This evening I set out on my trip to UK's Glastonbury Festival and Laura will fly home to Canada towards the end of the week. Her six month journey around the world is coming to an end. My adventures are not quite over though so stay tuned. I am sure I will have quite the stories from the biggest outdoor music festival in the world!

 

Happy Summer,

Shannon

My Irish Sunshine

Have you heard about Ireland's summer?

 

Apparently it's on a Thursday this year.

 

 

This joke was circling about a month ago around Ireland. Its prospect was a bit depressing, but I am happy to report that Ireland has already proved this stereotype wrong! The first week of June was incredibly beautiful with little wind, constant sunshine and temperatures rocketing as high as 25 Celsius! Alright 25 is not high by Canadian standards, but here in Ireland it is a scorcher so I got out to enjoy it while I could. I even wore shorts and sunscreen for a few days. Now I must admit that after this week the sun was replaced by rain, but the last couple days have been nice again. I don't think the weatherman even knows what each day will bring.

 

When I am around campus this summer I am keeping a fairly low profile working on my schoolwork, so in this blog instead of recounting long-winded stories I thought I would share a few pictures of Irish sunshine, just to prove it does happen!

 

As we were flying into Ireland after being in Rome, both Laura and I were once again stunned by the green richness of Ireland's landscape. All that rain pays off because when the sun comes out all the plants look incredibly lush. No wonder they call it the Emerald Isle. Just look at the Shannon at low-tide, framed by fabulous green!

 

 

Elsewhere around campus, flowers came out in full force. These vines are near the entrance to the library.

 

 Lots of people were outdoors being active in the beautiful weather. I took these pictures on my walk downtown to the Limerick Learning Hub where I taught a violin class. That day we held our lesson outdoors, played games and imitated the sounds of nature and the city.

 

 The swans are also out in full force. There are only seven here, but I must have seen about a dozen of them along the Shannon one day when I went for a run. I've also seen two parent swans with six fluffy cygnets (I'll admit I looked that word up).

 

When the sun comes out, my office moves outdoors onto the patio

 

 And when I'm tired of working it becomes a practice studio.

As a Canadian in Ireland how do you celebrate a nice day? With a cold beer from the homeland! Sadly it was sans BBQ... something I'm greatly looking forward to when I return home.

 

Unfortunately I have not seen too much sun recently because I've been cooped up in my room writing a paper. It is much easier to focus on schoolwork when the weather is gloomy. Most certainly the weather will turn drizzly as soon as I arrive at the Glastonbury Festival, which is only a week away! However I will not complain because what we have received so far is much more than predicted by the joke.

 

I'm keeping this blog short and sweet (just like Irish sunshine),

Shannon